


Cursed to Wander the Vortex (Everything is right now)

by Amemait



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-17
Updated: 2013-07-17
Packaged: 2017-12-20 11:39:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/886837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Humans have to give words tenses. Galifreyans had little concept of tenses, but the last of the Time Lords has a concept of forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cursed to Wander the Vortex (Everything is right now)

The Sixth Doctor had met a possibility of his darker side.  
  
'Somewhere between your twelfth and fourteenth regenerations.'  
  
His sixth self, fifth regeneration.  
  
He was the Tenth. His ninth regeneration. He had three to go before that would – might? Maybe could? – happened/would happen/might happen/damn, Rose was right, Time Travel does sometimes play havoc with your tense-usage.  
  
The Master had told him. Had known. He still wasn't sure how that worked.  
  
' **You finally lost.** '  
  
actus non actus. An act and not an act.  
  
An act of omission, and the Master had won.  
  
An act of omission on the Doctor's part; he should have ensured that only the soldiers had guns – Jack had given orders and they had been obeyed, the soldiers would not have shot the Master.  
  
His fellow Time Lord.  
  
' **...renegade Time Lord.** '  
  
Yes, quite. But which one of them, when it came right down to it, was/had been/would be/might be/is the renegade?  
  
There were very few tenses in Galifreyan. There was the now, and there was everything else. Humans had to move everything around, to give a different slot and name to a different point in time, when all time was really just the same, hypothetical or actualised.  
  
He'd heard a song once. WWI, England. He was watching over a sudden timeleak in Cardiff, ensuring it didn't get too out of control. Jack had mentioned that the timeleak was taken care of by Torchwood. Jack mentioned something about a paradox and a temporally-locked-  
  
But that didn't matter.  
  
' **tick, tock, wind up the clock, tomorrow's the same as today**.'  
  
Yes, it was.  
  
Would be.  
  
Might be.  
  
Had been.  
  
Has been.  
  
Is?  
  
Okay. Is.  
  
He could almost feel himself forgetting the language. He was the Doctor, he wasn't supposed to forget anything, the TARDIS was so linked to him, hearts and mind and soul and regenerations, and the TARDIS could remember every language he'd ever learned and-  
  
But he could feel himself slipping, could feel his grasp of a language that now only he could speak and mean to speak. He'd never taught any of his Companions; they hadn't needed it.  
  
The Master's words.  
  
Last words.  
  
He spoke Galifreyan to the Doctor in those last words, though Jack and Martha and that blasted wife of his hadn't known it. They'd heard the words in English, because the TARDIS could still translate for them, but the soldiers around them hadn't understood a thing.  
  
The Doctor had wept.  
  
He had held the only other member of his race in his arms, and wept.  
  
He had wept for the loss of a culture, of a world, wept because he'd never allowed himself to weep about it before. He had wept for the loss of a person.  
  
He had wept for the loss of an enemy who had some-no, who had oftentimes been the closest thing to a friend, if by friend you took to mean one who truly understood him.  
  
He had wept for the loss of a language. Without language, there can be no understanding.  
  
Without words, he had wept.  
  
Now he walked away from the funeral pyre. His eyes were dry, his face was stony, his shoulders were tense as he tried not to shiver against the cold.  
  
Cold inside his hearts as well as outside, the further he went from the warmth of the fire.  
  
Queen Dido of Carthage had burned upon a pyre of her own making, her soul consumed by her hatred and love of Aeneas. She had cursed Aeneas with her words before she died.  
  
The Master of Galifrey now burned upon a pyre of the Doctor's making, his body being consumed by fire just as his soul had been consumed by madness. He had cursed the Doctor with his words before he died.  
  
Cursed to wander the Vortex. To wander the Vortex forever.


End file.
